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I’m calling for a unilateral pullout from Iraq

My response to Christianne Amanpour...

This week has finally done it for me. I’ve had enough. The fine reporting of Christine Amanpour and Peter Arnett has finally shown me the error in my ways. How many more young men do we need to lose in Iraq before we get the message? Our people over there are simply not going to win no matter how many people we throw at the problem. It's not like our people over there have been the least bit successful in changing public opinion. The war goes on as if nothing they do matters. We have suffered loss and after loss, kidnapping and death after death and still the war still goes on as if our efforts have had no effect. Its time to pull out.

Of course, I’m not talking about pulling out US Troops, but the reporters and journalists of the Western Media.

After the stunning attack on an Anchorman and his camera operator (which has finally personalized the war in the mind of the great reporters of CNN), it is clear that the enemy has no respect for common decency and the rules of warfare. If they are going to attack a prime time anchorman who was in the process of reporting the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi Army, then I ask you, just who is safe in the face of these barbarians? If they will attack a celebrity journalist, then who amoungst the rest of us is safe? It is time to finally pull our brave journalists out of the Green Zone in Iraq and the bars of Kuwait as they have been wholly unsuccessful in their mission. Despite their valiant efforts, they have failed at every turn. The journalistic efforts in Iraq are nothing less than a complete “quagmire” the likes of which we haven’t seen since the free elections in Nicaragua which threw out the journalists friends the valiant Sandanistas, despite the continued best efforts of celebrity semi-journalists Bianca Jagger and Jackson Browne.

As it turns out, Iraq wasn’t the Vietnam the journalists hoped for, but the Nicaragua they feared it would be.

The best efforts of journalists in Iraq have left them unable to sway opinion of the Jihadi and the American viewing public who regularly discredits them for their elitist leftist bias. It is simply not worth the cost in journalist lives to continue to report from Iraq. For all the risks they take with their reporting, and for all the change in public opinion that it generated, it would have been just as effective had the reporters stayed in Boca Raton and made the whole thing up, which truth be told, many of them did.

Can anyone fault the reporter who refuses to man his station at the International Hotel Bar in Kabul or The Green Zone in Baghad? Well neither can I.

How can any Vice President of Network News ask the last stringer to be the last man to die for another story on Halliburton and its obvious crimes against the Iraqi people when that story can be performed with just as much bias and yet much more safely from Ft. Lee, New Jersey rather than the horrors of the Iraqi desert?

Years of training, vocal cadence, serious eyebrow arching and exotic cosmetic surgery go into making a Network news anchor the finely tuned tool of public opinion that we need them to be. These talents should not be wasted in a lost cause like the war in Iraq. The war is over, and sadly for CNN, the newsmen lost.

It is time to bring the boys home. No more blood for ratings.


( Yeah, I know. I crossed a line somewhere, but tonight after listening to reporter after reporter cry their eyeballs out on this evenings reports about how a "brave fellow reporter got hurt" in light of all the unrecognized bravery and sacrifice of all of our men and women who have given their lives and fought not for ratings but for freedom and democracy, it just made me flip out a little bit. This poor reporting was done while at the same time the men and women who volunteered to serve their country have died in Iraq are given "the stinkeye" by the same news organization. So I'm sorry, the whole thing just got to me a bit. )

Posted @ January 30, 2006 10:53 PM | Current Affairs

Comments

Nothing but the best from the mind of Frank Martin.

Posted by: roberto at January 31, 2006 07:15 PM

Absolutely masterful!

Posted by: Cowboy Blob at January 31, 2006 08:32 PM

Amen to that, brother!

You do, I'm quite sure, realize that the journalists see themselves as both braver and more valuable in Iraq than the soldiers. After all, they don't have to be there, and how are Americans going to know what to think if they're not?

Posted by: Giacomo at February 1, 2006 03:10 AM

> After all, they don't have to be there

Of course, with an all volunteer army, none of the soldiers have to be there, either -- and they do it without the hope of glory and celebrity which the journalistas fully expect as a reward...

Posted by: OhBloodyHell at February 2, 2006 04:04 PM

After listening to the Pentagon press briefing yesterday something struck me--not an anvil, but a thought. Rumsfeld said something about how the American media is so concerned that a story planted by the DoD--be it true or false, that's not the point--in the foreign media will somehow seep into the American media and taint its purity. But they show no concern about how their gullible embrace of everything they see in the foreign media, which is frequently the product of the enemy's effective media campagin, taints Americans' understanding of what is going on in this war. I'm beginning to wonder if this whole free press thing isn't more trouble than it's worth--so while I'll miss Christiane's green headscarf that she wears when yucking it up with that lunatic in Tehran, well, I'll take one for the team.

Posted by: AcademicElephant at February 2, 2006 05:41 PM

i posted this the day after it happened.


"Staying the course in Iraq is not an option or a policy for the MSM. I believe we must begin discussions for an immediate re-deployment of all MSM reporters from Iraq. Some claim the answer is to put even more reporters on the ground, but many of our reporters are already on their third deployment, our MSM cannot recruit to its current target, even as they lower recruiting standards.

My plan calls for a more rapid turnover of reporting in Iraq to the Iraqi reporters. MSM reporting in in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency. The MSM has become a catalyst for violence. That's why we must redeploy reporters immediately!"

(SATIRE OFF.) First, I want to extend my condolences to the Woodruff anf Vogt families. I am praying for their swift and complete recovery.

Now.... here's the truth:

EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT ACCIDENTALLY ONE OF THE VICTIMS IN THIS ATTACK WAS A CELEBRITY, THERE IS NO NEWS-WORTHINESS IN THIS STORY.

The enemy hasn't surrendered and they continue to target soft targets: mosques; funerals; weddings; children getting candy; Iraqi police; Iraqi Army and and reporters riding in Iraq Army vehicles.

The troops are EXACTLY RIGHT: the Old Media care more about themselves than our troops our our cause. That's one big reason the Old Media is scum. And their ratings reflect the fact that patriotic Americans realize this!

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2006/02/newsanchor-injured-in-iraq-time-to.html

Posted by: reliapundit at February 3, 2006 06:45 PM